


(isn't it so quiet you) swear the heart is telepathic

by headbuttingbears



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Daddy Kink, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Magical Plot Contrivance, Office Sex, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 14:54:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10026776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/headbuttingbears/pseuds/headbuttingbears
Summary: "You're getting around a magic that repels cold by not thinking about freezing while you freeze something?" "Well, you put it like that, it sounds silly." | A heatwave provides Queenie and Graves with learning opportunities. Namely: how to make do, and how to move on.





	

**Author's Note:**

> References Queenie/Jacob.
> 
> (On the nose) title from Beckian Fritz Goldberg's "Eros in His Striped Shirt."
> 
> For Jenny, as always. Long overdue though it was.

"Someone oughta take care of those birds," said the first wizard in line, wiping the sweat off his neck with a handkerchief and admiring the curve of Queenie's arm as she floated ice cubes into his proffered mug. His thoughts were bloodier than his words suggested, but they didn't mark him out as a particularly aggressive member of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Not even as a MACUSA employee in general. At least, not while it was a balmy hundred degrees in the middle of December.

Queenie held her tongue and waved her wand, the carafe of cold-brewed coffee rising to fill the wizard's mug. Nobody was paying for her thoughts on the situation, after all. Nor would they have made her particularly popular.

Because, if she were being perfectly candid, she didn't mind the heat so much. Sure, it had been five days and no cooling spell in the world held up against the Huma's ambient magic, but it wasn't their fault. It would've been nice if they took their courting elsewhere, over the bay or to New Jersey, but she got the appeal of the Woolworth building. It was a fancy bit of architecture; for big birds needing a big aerie it was hard to beat Manhattan's skyscrapers.

And honestly? She liked being able to wear her summer skirts to work in winter. It was fun.

"Blame whatever nimrod bought them illegally in the first place," said the sneering witch behind him, a charmed paper fan waving limply towards her face. "They're firebirds, not canaries. You can't just set them free when they get too big for the cage."

"They're still birds," said the sweaty wizard, hovering near Queenie's cart. "They're not even immortal. Hell, they're barely sentient, so what's the big deal? Put them down already." His words were as heated as the look he gave her and her ice bucket. Didn't need to be a legilimens to know exactly what he was imagining as he swigged his iced coffee.

"A death curse tends to be a pretty good deterrent," the witch said, joining the man in loitering as the next wizard in line insisted death curses were European nonsense.

Her head began to ache as she struggled to block out the renewed swell of irritation from the people around her. It was such a pain when they lingered instead of taking their drinks back to their desks. She kept her eyes down, filling mug after mug with ice and coffee, cream and extra sugar, wishing they'd listen if she tried to shoo them away after serving them. Pigeons in the street were more cooperative.

"Send Graves upstairs to deal with them," someone near the back of the line suggested, "maybe they'll mistake him for Grindelwald and scram." The subsequent outbreak of bitter chuckling made her temples throb.

She really had to work on blocking people out completely, Queenie thought with a wince for the hundredth time that morning. When all amusement abruptly vanished, she sighed in relief, thinking she'd succeeded, only to look up to a much shorter line than before.

Did two people constitute a line?

And then it was one person after the second-to-last wizard, red-faced, bolted with a dangerously sloshing mug and without a word of thanks. That left Percival Graves standing alone before her, his hands in his pockets. Where others had removed waistcoats and rolled up sleeves, loosened neckties or unbuttoned collars, his sole concession to the heat had been to shuck his suit jacket.

"I heard someone was serving coffee. It sounded so absurd I had to see for myself." As if the head of the aurors needed to justify his presence anywhere. Maybe he did when his department – heck, the whole of MACUSA – was still so skittish around him.

Of course, being impersonated for a week by the most infamous dark wizard on two continents would have that effect on a guy's reputation. No matter how Picquery fought to cover it up, the _Ghost_ had published all the dirty details of how Grindelwald had played the whole of MACUSA for saps. Great reading, but bad for public opinion.

Unfortunately, what people now _knew_ – that Graves had been nothing but a fall guy – did nothing to change what people had _seen_ – namely, Graves showing up to work every day like normal. Attending congressional meetings like normal. Heartlessly duelling his own staff in a tunnel and winning like… maybe not normal. Maybe. Grim possibilities – that the "real" Graves had been somehow swayed by Grindelwald during his captivity; that he was equally capable of cutting down his own people without mercy – lurked in the back of most people's minds, coloring their perceptions.

After meeting Jacob, it'd been easy for her to stop taking every word she read in the papers as gospel. Besides, nobody had the inside scoop like she did. Ignorant people were paranoid; if there was thing Queenie Goldstein couldn't claim to be, it was ignorant of a wizard's motivations.

And, frankly speaking, she just wasn't paid enough to worry. She barely got paid enough to deal with the toilets.

"It's not absurd, it's iced," she said with a winning smile that, according to her sister's memories, the false Graves would've honed in on like a niffler to gold. But the real McCoy was busy watching one of the spare porcelain mugs nose around in the bucket. "Okay, it's _usually_ iced," she said with some dismay as the mug came up empty.

If he felt any impatience it didn't show; he stood silent as she sighed and swished her wand to gather up all the leftover meltwater into a swirling ball between them. The water was obstinate; it took another slower motion for it to get the idea and form into a set of spheres, then harden into cubes with rounded edges. She hadn't managed to get them any pointier, but it was just a matter of time.

After all the leering she'd endured over the past week, it was refreshing how Graves barely looked at her as she went about her work. "How did you come up with this?" he asked with a frown, a shake of his head sending the pitcher of cream sinking back down onto the cart dejectedly.

"I, uh…" Many in the magical community would sneer if they heard it was a No-Maj invention, but true honesty – that over the weekend she'd bought an iced coffee at Jacob's bakery to go with some of his delicious puffskein-shaped biscuits, that she'd asked him directly for the recipe in another failed attempt to coax some erased memories out of him – would net her a hefty fine. And that's if she were lucky. Regardless of what Grindelwald might've attempted, the law was still the law, and Graves hadn't been dismissed from his job of enforcing it.

And, unlike the rest of MACUSA, she didn't have a problem distinguishing between the two men. She'd been there when Grindelwald's fraud had been revealed. His disguise must've been perfect to fool everyone who dealt with the real Graves on a daily basis, but it had been like a snapshot: unchanging, ageless. Graves, wherever he'd been stashed away, had not been unaffected. There was more white in his hair now, more frown lines on a face that was noticeably thinner.

Most obviously to her, there was his occlumency shield. Brief though her time in Grindelwald's presence had been, she'd still noticed how entirely _absent_ he was. There had been no mental barrier to lean on, no hidden form revealed by the environment curving around it, as rain would over a magical umbrella. His occlumency skills were so accomplished that she'd looked straight at him and felt blind.

Graves, on the other hand, threw off a faint vibration that hummed distractingly somewhere between her ears, like a radio set between stations in the next room. If it had been any louder it would've been annoying, but after how every passing fancy that tripped through the department's collective brains had been the mental equivalent of an attention-starved child tugging at her sleeve, _Look over here, look at me, me me me?_

Well, a low drone was a relief. Practically relaxing.

If Graves noticed her magical scrutiny, he didn't react. "The Huma interference is rampant," he said instead, accepting the mug and levitating one of the ice cubes with an elegant motion of his hand. "What spell did you use? It can't be a Goshawk variation."

 _Goshawk_ \- "Oh, you mean the ice?" There was a thick slather of disbelief over her question, but who could blame her? She could count on one hand the number of times a wizard had expressed interest in her spellwork. They were usually more interested in other things.

"Yes, Miss Goldstein, I mean the ice." He smoothly lowered the cube back into the mug before taking a sip. The glance he gave her over the rim was amused but short-lived – his eyebrows rose dramatically and he lowered the mug, licking his lips before taking another larger swallow with a grunt of pleasure.

"Good, ain't it?" she said with some degree of pride before completely forgetting his question in favor of carrying on about how nothing compared to a cold drink on a hot day, and how unneighborly the Huma were being, squashing all their efforts to cool off, but they were just birds, weren't they? Not really to blame, but despite how forgiving she was that didn't stop her from sweating like everyone else, did it?

Even Graves was sweating as he let her prattle on, drinking his coffee in lieu of interrupting. Lured in by caffeine and a break from the heat, he'd gotten close enough to the cart that she could make out dampness at his temples, a flush in his pale cheeks, and what she could see of his throat above his tight collar-

A bead of perspiration rolled down her forehead; she wiped it away, brushing her hair back and losing her train of thought in the same instant.

When others admired her, they did so lately with eyes as heavy on her body as their thoughts were in her mind. She'd been blaming the heat, but Graves's manner caused her to think twice. If they were pushy then he was shy, peeking at her past his mug as he chugged the last of his black coffee. His eyes didn't rake over her, but flicked quick as a hummingbird: from her hair, curls bouncier than ever thanks to the humidity, down the line of her neck to the hollow of her throat, exposed by the open collar of her blouse. Two small buttons undone, no more, not as many as she'd like but certainly not enough to attract trouble, though the way Graves's eyes hovered there made her reconsider.

Or maybe he was the one doing the reconsidering. There _were_ an awful lot of buttons on that waistcoat. And then there was his shirt…

"You're right," he said, sparking a momentary panic in Queenie that she'd been thinking out loud again, the way Tina complained when she sank too deeply into someone else's head. But that was impossible – the tingling hum of his shield was still there, diverting her attention from the rest of the floor.

When it became painfully obvious after a moment that she had no idea what he was talking about, he elaborated. "They _are_ just birds. Whatever the rumor mill suggests, Kneedander and Species Protection are what people should really be afraid of, not a death curse."

That was the most he'd said to her in the five years she'd been working at MACUSA and the best she could manage in response was, "Oh. 'Kay." Embarrassment over how dim she sounded triggered a second blush, further distracting her; consequently, it took her a moment to absorb all the implications of his words.

Most notably that he'd actually been listening to her, not just using her chatter as an excuse to give her a once-over. Twice-over, given how long she talked.

Maybe she was projecting the rush of fondness she felt, but as he gazed down at his now-empty mug, the lonely ice cubes rattling freely against the inside, he seemed… less serious. Nearly in danger of smiling. It would be a tiny smile, but just the prospect did wonders for his dour appearance.

"Here, hun." Her hand darted out to clasp his, holding the mug steady for the charmed carafe to refill. She didn't notice how the ice cubes bobbed like ships in the bay as coffee poured in, too distracted by the heat of his skin against hers. The slide of his mind against hers, and there was a twisting in her mind, like radio dials being turned. The volume increased, the static receded-

He pulled free of her slack grasp, eyes downcast as he waved away the carafe, and the distant hum returned. "Tell me how you made the ice." Might've been an order if it wasn't for the nearly imperceptible quaver in his voice, a match for how his hand – his occlumency barrier – had trembled at her unexpected touch.

 _He's only asking about your charmwork_ , a voice piped up. A very young, very naïve voice she hadn't heard since her school days, from the brief time before she'd learned the hard way that _let's hit the books together_ was just another line wizards were more than happy to feed her.

The ice cubes clinked together, Graves said nothing, and maybe that's what decided things for her: he didn't push, he didn't try to handle her. He never smiled or called her doll. _C'mon, doll, help me out here._ How many times had she heard that in the last week alone?

"I'm no good at explainin' things," she said, checking that everything was in its proper place on the cart. "But I could always show you later, after my shift?"

"Later then. After four." The smile – the threat of a smile, anyway – was gone as he turned to leave.

"Wait." A quick twitch of her wand left him with a splash of cream in his coffee and a straw zooming from the cart to dive into the mug, stirring hurriedly, stripes swirling continuously up its plastic length like a No-Maj barber's pole. "It tastes better like that, promise."

His suspicion deepened until he slowly sucked a mouthful up the straw's length.

"I told you," she called, flushing. Because of the heat, and not because of how his lips had looked pursed around the straw, or how his eyes had darted to hers in wry concession before he walked away.

 

* * *

 

The heat hadn't lessened any when she stepped into the stuffy hallway of the DMLE hours later, but a quick stop at a ladies room to freshen up meant she didn't look half as crushed by it as the people she passed. Before being demoted, Tina had been dragged down Lexington once by a rampaging troll – the trickle of aurors heading in the opposite direction looked much the same as she had when she'd finally made it home. Maybe a little sweatier.

What trepidation Queenie felt came from her lateness – thanks to Abernathy running her ragged the second she got back to the Wand Permit department, it was long past quitting time. _Do this, do that, counter-curse this, charm that._ Honestly, if she hadn't been able to read the man's mind she might've suspected him of being a squib, but she knew that was the farthest thing from the truth. His wand worked as well as anyone else's, he just couldn't be bothered to learn.

Speaking of learning… The door clicked open before she could knock; the office she entered was just as muggy as the hall.

"Just a minute," Graves said. He was on his feet, leaning over his desk, a comically large stack of files floating next to him the big brother to the smaller pile before him. Used to waiting on others, it didn't occur to her to mind as he scanned file after file, signing the bottom with a looping _G_ before two heavy ink stamps jumped past a familiar porcelain mug to leave their marks. Nothing she hadn't seen a hundred times before, and the steady _thu-thump_ was nothing she hadn't heard a thousand times before, but his stamps were larger than she'd ever seen, and distractingly shiny as they darted forwards and back.

The couple of loose strands of hair hanging down over his face were distracting too, as was the long line of his arm, white sleeve nearly translucent under the light, hand braced against the desk pad as his quill scratched a brief note across the bottom of a report.

At least he didn't keep her waiting long. The last file folder flipped closed, the ribbon around it straining to retie itself as it drifted up to the top of the paperwork tower, and Graves straightened up to his full height. "It never ends," he said sardonically, and swept a hand over his hair, righting it, as the stack wobbled around the side of the desk. She glimpsed stick-like fingers curled around the files' edges before there was the tell-tale _crack_ of a house elf disapparating and the lot was gone.

"We could do this some other time," she started, mindful of the late hour, but Graves shook his head. A twist of his hand summoned things from the cabinets as his plush leatherback chair rolled itself further out of the way while his desk cleared itself, leaving only his wand where it lay in the middle. The mug she'd given him that morning, now relegated to one corner of the large desk, was replaced by a silver bowl and an ewer of water. Now he was the one waiting.

She wouldn't leave him waiting long either. Wand clasped lightly in both hands, she approached his desk, wondering how to explain. "The main trick is not to think of it as freezin' the water," she said, tapping the end of her wand against her palm and rushing to explain when his mouth opened, eyebrows drawn together. "Yeah, I know it ends up as ice, but the point isn't the ice or else it don't work. Get it?"

He licked his lip before closing his mouth, gears visibly turning as she tapped the ewer so it would fill the bowl three-quarters full with lukewarm water. "You're getting around the Huma's magic, which repels cold, by not thinking about freezing while you freeze something?"

Jacob had blindly accepted whatever she said; why couldn't all men be so easy-going?

"Well, you put it like that, it sounds silly." She stood at the short side of his desk and brushed her hair back, shook out her shoulders dramatically before raising her wand. " _Moderate_ ," she said out loud for his benefit.

This time her focus was good and the water didn't hesitate – it slowed at once, coalescing into three balls of ice that rolled close together in the middle of the bowl.

"I usually transfigure 'em square after, but I figure you don't care much about how they look," she said as Graves picked up one of the balls to examine it. "They're real hard," she added when he tapped it lightly against the desk pad. "Like rocks, and they stay that way for hours. Better than regular ice."

He clenched it tightly in his fist before opening his hand and finding the ball unchanged, his skin dry. " _Moderate_ is a time charm, isn't it? To slow things down."

"Uh huh!" It had taken the weekend to figure out, and it hadn't been easy. Lots of trial and error. Lots of damp sleeves. "That's what I mean about not freezin' anything. Just… tellin' it to move slower. Isn't that where ice comes from? Water that ain't in a hurry?"

He didn't answer, and in the silence she could hear things in his cabinets ticking, whirring, and clicking. Behind it all there was the persistent hum of his shield. Thanks to that and the empty offices surrounding them, her own thoughts were loud and lonely in her mind. Each one clearly defined: she couldn't wait to get home and take off her stockings; this new office was so much less intimidating than the one she and Jacob had broken into; had she made any sense at all? Maybe there was another way to phrase it-

"Good thinking, Miss Goldstein," Graves said at last, interrupting her growing worry, letting the ball roll off his hand and back into the bowl. His sidelong consideration of her was full of a respect that she'd never received before. Not from her own sort, anyway, especially not from someone so skilled. Mr. Scamander had looked at her with something close, but he'd looked at Frank the same way. And poor Jacob had been awestruck by everything.

There was no stopping the blush that bloomed hot across her face; she ducked her head, praying she didn't come off too coy. "My sister, Tina, she's better at this sorta thing than I am, _and_ she's got more oomph-"

"Power isn't everything," he interrupted. "And she didn't come up with this. You did."

"I guess…" She twisted a lock of hair around her finger absently until she noticed Graves staring and turned it into a sheepish fanning motion. "You probably know the charm already, huh? So there's no point in me showin' you-"

"I don't, actually," he said, fidgeting with the silver end of his wand where it lay on his desk. "School was a long time ago."

"And how," she said, patting his arm sympathetically. "They teach you all sorts of things and you don't end up usin'… half of it…" There was that sense of clearing feedback again, not as loud as when she'd touched his hand. More like pressing an ear against a thick wall, recognizing the rise and fall of conversation but being unable to make out any of the words. Like last time, it stopped the moment she dropped her hand.

"I'd appreciate the refresher," he was saying, dark eyes giving away no awareness of her reflexive attempt at eavesdropping.

Guilt swept through her. "Y-yeah, sure thing."

 _Rude, Queenie,_ she heard Tina say in her head as she took a step closer so that they were facing the same direction. Ignored how the hem of her skirt brushed his pant leg as she held her wand out in the starting position. "It's down, around, up, and then you roll your wrist like this." Demonstrated a second time, slower, as he studied the movement. Rarely did his eyes drift elsewhere – to her twisting wrist, the line of her arm, how the sleeve of her silk blouse fell into wrinkles against her shoulder as she moved. Very rarely. He actually paid attention, unlike most men.

It was tough to say which was less familiar: the lack of ogling or the serious way Graves dealt with her. Jacob had listened too, but he hadn't known from nothing and hadn't been afraid to show it with every grin, his eyes big as his desire to impress her. There was none of that from Graves, just a grim attentiveness as if she were one of the toughest teachers at Ilvermorny and exams were right around the corner.

As if to reinforce the image, a studious pair of wrinkles appeared between Graves's thick eyebrows as he picked up his wand and concentrated on copying her movement. Though he followed the pattern precisely she knew it wouldn't have worked for real. _Too_ precise.

"It's less forceful than that," she said tactfully. "You aren't duelling, you're icing a cake. Light and easy."

"Habit." His grimace faded when her fingertips lit on his crisp white cuff. With her guidance, his second attempt was better. Slower, less like he was trying to cut some unfortunate beast to ribbons and more like he was drawing curlicues in fresh snow.

"Now you're on the broom!" She paid no attention to how her fingertips tingled – surely just a result of proximity to his occlumency shield – but smiled encouragingly at him instead. "Don't worry, you'll be havin' your drinks on the rocks again in no time."

Must've imagined the disappointment that flashed across his face as she melted her ice back to water. Judging by his high color, the way he slipped a couple of fingers under the snug edge of his collar for a moment's relief, he should've been excited at the prospect of being able to cool himself down.

"Alright, give it a whirl." She stepped back to give him space.

The motion was right, the emphasis on _moderate_ in the correct place when he murmured the charm, but something clearly went wrong because it wasn't just the water that froze.

He lowered his wand to tap the silver bowl, grunting when it cracked into two pieces and left the block of ice rocking on the hoary desk pad.

Queenie couldn't help the giggle that escaped her. "I think you came on a little strong, honey," she said as he repaired the bowl and thawed the lot with no effort at all. Perhaps he was just that much more powerful than her? It wasn't a very complicated charm, more persuasive than anything… "Try again."

Watched him carefully as he adjusted his stance, lifted his hand, and she stopped him before he could start, looking down at his long legs, his black shoes.

"You're plantin' your feet," she said, nudging the side of his foot with her toe so that he drew his feet closer together. Even then he still looked so firmly grounded that he could've put down roots, and there was nothing for it but to pocket her wand, grab him by the shoulders, and give him a quick shake.

"Miss Goldstein…" Brief resistance until he, like the water, decided to cooperate. Only when his arms flopped slightly did she let him go; they hung loose at his sides while he radiated exasperation, sweat darkening the hair at his temples. "Why?"

"You're too tense." Her sister would've been appalled at her, daring to shake the starch unasked out of such a big shot, but it was too hot to waste time. "This isn't a life or death struggle, just a simple time charm. Nothin' requiring anythin' in the way of real power, okay? You've gotta be kinda, you know, loose."

His eyes slid quickly down her, head to toe, hesitating only on her hand as she fanned herself. "Loose?"

The doubtful way he said it reminded her of Tina so much she couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, loose." She shimmied her shoulders, nearly giggling again at how his eyes widened. "Don't be such a stiff, try it."

"I'm sure I couldn't manage it half as well," he said drily, but she recognized the glimmer of a smile on his face for what it was, and that would have to be enough.

"That's more like it! Give it another go."

When he turned back to the water, she slipped behind him, as close as his shadow so she could prod his foot when he unconsciously set his feet. He never saw her grin as he huffed, dropped his broad shoulders and rolled them back in a deliberate attempt at loosening up.

She reached around him to tap his wrist, and he dutifully lowered it.

"Now just a slow, easy…" The tension gathering in his body was like a spring coiling; she patted his side, gently chiding him, "Relax. Think slow."

The breath he heaved was unsteady, the glance over his shoulder at her abortive, and if he felt the seesawing in his shield too he visibly ignored it. As he did when she brushed her thumb against the black silk back of his waistcoat, the tone-on-tone pattern catching the light as he moved. Less aggressively than before, not quite at her level of nonchalance, but there was a shimmering sound like fine sugar being poured, and a quick look over his shoulder at the bowl was all she needed.

"Attaboy!" She clapped her hands. As much for herself as for him – she'd never taught anyone anything truly useful before, never really had the opportunity, and it had _worked_. It had very obviously worked because Graves was floating a large ball of ice above the bowl.

"Hm." His frown deepened after he summoned the empty mug from its desktop corner; the ball rested on top of it neatly as a seer's crystal ball on a stand.

"Alright, maybe it's too big for anything smaller than a fishbowl, but who cares?" She clasped her hands tightly, practically wriggling with excitement. It worked! And all without her relying on her legilimency _once_ to help her explain things, and Queenie couldn't resist. She grabbed his free hand and squeezed it, longing to know if he felt even a fraction of her happiness. "I knew you could-"

There was a screech of interference before the static of his mental barrier dissolved, and it was like a bored Tina fidgeting with the dial. A few seconds here, a few seconds there, wheeling back and forth between a hundred songs and broadcasts, dramas and comedies, and they all sounded equally interesting and equally awful, _I don't know, what are you in the mood for?_

 _I don't care, just stop_ , she wanted to yell. _Stop it, pick something already,_ but there wasn't any point because it was in her mind. _His_ mind. All of it, all at once. The magical distortion was gone, replaced instead with snippets of things and places she recognized – MACUSA headquarters, Manhattan, Ilvermorny – and so many more she didn't, everything blasting at her loud and clear. A dark room, the air dank with mold; the lonely stretch of an empty dining room table before him; fall sunshine warming black trouser-clad knees where they peek out from under an open book, the pages weighted down by his small hand, the palm-sized oval of a golden leaf twirling between his fingers. Back and forth, back and-

His hand flexed convulsively in hers, once, before he pulled away from her, the mental bedlam replaced once more by the soothing hiss of white noise.

Queenie swayed, light-headed and not solely because of the heat. There was an echo in her head, as if her ears were ringing, but it wasn't physical. It was something else, something from him. An urge to- to what?

"Miss Goldstein?"

 

* * *

 

"Queenie? Are you even listening to me?"

"Huh?" She looked up from the spoon dumping more sugar into her lemonade. "Yeah, uh… poltergeists can be real downers," she said lamely, waving her spoon away at last so she could sip her lemonade and hide behind her glass. Too sweet.

The Huma were taking their sweet time; the heatwave had spread over the whole of Manhattan in a matter of days. It wasn't so terrible uptown, but they'd still thrown open the tiny windows and were sitting around in their slips, too hot to sleep and longing for more seasonable weather. Though it hadn't been just the heat keeping her up.

"What's eating you lately?" Tina asked before slowly draining the last of her own lemonade while Queenie used her ruined drink as an excuse to get away from her sister's watchful eyes.

Shrugged as she ran the tap to rinse the lemonade down the drain. "Nothin'." She could feel her sister staring hard at her, likely over the rim of her glass.

"Is it Jacob? Are you still stuck on him?" Straight to the point like when they were in school and her younger sister had gotten into some fresh trouble. But they weren't in school any more, and when Queenie didn't speak up she became more concerned. "I know he got a raw deal, but you can't be sneaking off to see him. It's not good for you, and besides, you're gonna get caught and I won't-"

"No, no, that ain't it, really," Queenie said, interrupting before Tina's words could match her darker thoughts of helplessness. She rushed back to the table, narrowly avoiding Tina's empty glass whizzing past to join hers in the sink, and took her sister's hand. "I haven't been to seen him at all this week."

Tina didn't look entirely convinced by her white lie; maybe her sister had a touch of legilimency the way she'd always suspected. "Don't try giving me any wooden dragots, I haven't seen you so worked up since his memories were taken."

"It's got nothing to do with Jacob, honest! Cross my heart." Made the childish motion to match but it failed to produce so much as a twitch of a smile in Tina's face. On the contrary, her suspicions deepened – _the lady doth protest too much_ went the stream of her thoughts – and Queenie had never coped well with guilt. "It's not Jacob, it's Percival Graves."

"What?" That took care of the suspicion. It vanished like a popped soap bubble, leaving behind the empty air of shock. "Graves? My boss? Impersonated-by-Grindelwald Graves? That Percival Graves?"

For an unkind moment she wished she could obliviate her sister and start the whole conversation over again. "Teenie, listen, I haven't- Oh, pipe down," she snapped, releasing her sister's hand to slouch back in her chair and cross her arms, feathers ruffled by the tack Tina's thoughts had taken. Straight back into still-tender memories, demotion and interrogation, the order of execution, nothing the real Graves had been party to. "You oughta know better than anyone not to go 'round judging people based purely on gossip," she said. After a dip in his mind, the edge of defensiveness that sharpened her tone was unavoidable.

"You're right." Tina's face was blank as a fresh sheet of parchment, but there was a certain rigidity to her expression that told her not to poke around like usual to see how hard-won that admission was. "I'm listening."

She sighed. "All I did was teach him that little trick I came up with. For making the ice?"

If Tina had known how strongly reminiscent of Graves her unrelenting sternness was then she might've eased up on the wet blanket routine.

"Which went okay, thanks so much for asking." The memory of the tutoring session rose like bubbles in giggle water, but closer examination revealed this drink was too cold with self-possession, tart with loneliness at first taste. She swallowed, and there was the underlying sweetness of shared success, the addictiveness of pleasant company.

Not her usual hooch at all. Grabbing the wrong glass was an easy mistake to make when things were crowded and she wasn't paying attention.

"More than okay, really. But..." She pushed the stolen memory away and looked down at her fingers curled around her bare upper arm, half-expecting to see smeared writing on the back of her hand. Her lines for the scene they'd found themselves acting out repeatedly for decades. "I kind of read his mind?"

Tina finally broke. She sagged forward, dropped her head into her hands, and began to rub her forehead. "Oh, Queenie."

"Everything was hunky-dory at first! He's an occlumens, you know – of course you know, you're an auror too – and I only went to his office yesterday because I wanted to help out like before with the suitcase. I really liked being useful for a change-"

"For a change?" Tina left off trying to massage her brain to look up at her with sisterly sympathy, but Queenie ignored it.

"I thought I helped, but then... I don't know what happened. His mental block failed because I-" _touched him_. She couldn't say it, not when saying that much would mean telling Tina everything she'd felt. _He'd_ felt. Everything it had meant to him to have someone touch him without malice, without an ulterior motive. Or at all.

She cleared her throat. "It doesn't matter why, but it did. And I didn't mean to see anything, but I did." Almost added _as usual_ but she didn't want any more of Tina's pity, she wanted her help. Or at least her understanding.

It was there, she knew – under the low-lying mist of _poor Queenie, at it again_ there were gently rolling waves of _what can be done_ and _how can we fix this_. Soothing as kicking her shoes off and letting the surf roll over her feet, and she bit her lip to keep from giggling at the recollection of bigger feet, not her own, in the murky pond water at Ilvermorny. Thick mud oozing between his cold toes as he hunted for bladderworts for Potions, and she had done the same years later. She hadn't trouser legs to roll up like him, and she'd ended up soaked anyway when her friend had tripped her.

"Queenie?" Tina looked seconds away from tapping her knuckles against the side of Queenie's head and asking if anyone was home. That hadn't happened in years. "Look, assuming he knows what you did – and I'll level with you, he probably does – did you see anything classified? Anything you shouldn't have?"

She sat up straighter and sniffed. "It's _all_ stuff I shouldn't've seen, but no. Nothing top secret. There really wouldn't be any reason to fire me or- or obliviate me..."

Jacob's face, carefree as a child's, loomed large in her memory. Nothing more than a dull confusion after she kissed him, and just as blithely untroubled with every one of her subsequent sneaky visits to his bakery. Not a hint of remembrance – of how brave he'd been when given a second chance outside of the war, how warm and accepting when faced with the fantastic. Oh, it was all still in there somewhere, but it wasn't the same. _He_ wasn't the same.

Her sister was right; she had to stop going to see him.

That was a bitter pill to swallow, but it was nothing to the realization that memory spells, up close and personal, were _awful_. Sure, she'd messed up like she hadn't in years, gone too deep in someone else's mind unasked, and now she'd be weeding Graves's memories out from her own for a while longer, but the alternative – having no memories at all – was horrible. Beyond horrible, she decided with a wince as her head began to throb.

Tina was thinking along completely different lines. "If he hasn't fired you yet then he's not going to." She graciously declined to mention demotion – they both knew Queenie couldn't get much lower on the ladder than she already was – and smothered the thought guiltily the second it flared to life. "Grindelwald's act had been dead-on where it counted," she said instead with some very grudging acceptance. "It's not like him to hesitate. It's been two days; I'm sure you'll still have your job in the morning."

"I guess." Tina was right, of course, but she didn't feel any better about the situation, no matter how her sister strove to reassure her. It was like a curse she didn't know how to counter, she thought, picking at her chipped nail polish. It was everywhere, tainting everything. And it wasn't just her job that was affected.

"What's really the problem, kid?" Tina caught her hand again and gave it a brisk shake to capture her attention. "Whatever you saw… You usually shake it off a lot faster than this. Apologize and carry on your merry way."

Queenie blanched. Had she even apologized? It had all happened so fast – his broad hand in hers, his gloomy eyes fixed on her face as a thousand different thoughts and sensations, all of them stolen, whirled through her head as if playing on double-time. And behind the lot, like a drumbeat anchoring a song, was his urge to touch her.

If she were being honest, it wouldn't have surprised her in the least if he'd wanted to kiss her – he wouldn't have been the first man who wanted to, or even the most recent. No, he'd wanted something else. To embrace her, and not just to neck – there had been something different about it. In the moment she took his hand, Percival Graves had wanted desperately to hold her and he'd hated himself for it. Hated how isolated he'd become, how hungry for a connection he was that a _stranger_ -

"Oh, Teenie," she sighed, struggling to keep the composure she'd regained. "He's so alone."

 

* * *

 

Based on her sister's advice, Queenie found herself sweating outside Graves's office door at seven-thirty in the morning later that day.

Sweating and hesitating.

Not because she thought he might be out in the field already – the Secretary's Friend charm she'd set when she'd first passed his door told her he'd arrived at quarter-past and hadn't left since. So early to be working, especially on a Friday, but after what she'd seen she wasn't surprised. He might've jumped from the directorship before he could be pushed, but that had done nothing to change his routine.

"Try before eight," Tina had said when she'd asked what a good time to catch him in his office was. "Yes, in the morning. I don't know what sort of hours he kept as director, but before he got promoted he used to show up an hour or two before everyone else to check warrants." There had been an old respect in Tina's face that was at odds with the shock in her memory – Tina, young and always the striver, had wanted a peek at some files before anyone else and run straight into her new boss.

 _Paperwork, Miss Goldstein, is what controls our world,_ he'd said wryly before leaving her alone with the filing cabinets. That was more familiar to Queenie than feeling Tina so off-balance by finally meeting someone who rose earlier and got to work sooner than her.

Her own jitters didn't come from wanting to impress, or from some crazy fear that Graves would hex her for ambushing him the way Tina had half-jokingly suggested. He wasn't half as paranoid as the people around him were.

No, what stopped her at the door was the memory of Jacob – her own memory, thankfully. How they'd locked eyes across the crowded bakery the last time she'd visited, how his face had lit up when he saw her. Her heart had risen in her chest like a soufflé, only to sink down to her toes when he smiled at her without an ounce of recognition deeper than _my favorite customer_. It had been the same every time prior that she'd dropped in: hoping against hope that he'd remember, and she'd walked out the door a little lonelier every time when he never did.

 _You know they'll never forget it._ Picquery standing before him, head tilted as she considers him with the unsentimental eyes of a born politician. _You know there's no undoing this fiasco. An international criminal successfully impersonates the Director of Magical Security? People will be talking about it for centuries. The damage-_

Graves's voice resonating between her ears the way her own did when she spoke, but so much lower, harsher as he says, _Let me try_. His reputation – heck, MACUSA's reputation – was in tatters, but nobody would say he wasn't putting in his best effort to mend it.

Queenie could do no less. Shoulders back, chin up, and coffee tray perfectly balanced, she knocked twice on the door before opening it.

"Good morning," he said without looking up from the paperwork he was studying, quill at the ready. "You're here early, Miss Beswick."

"It was the only way to get some privacy with you. To _talk_ ," she tacked on when he looked up, studied blankness the closest he got to surprise. "And please, call me Queenie."

"If you hadn't beaten my secretary by a good half-hour you could've made an appointment, Miss Goldstein." He recovered quickly enough, but there was wariness in his eyes as he set his things aside that she only saw now that she knew to look for it. Still, he didn't tell her to scram. That was the most important part.

"For some time next decade, right? A guy like you probably has a pretty full plate, I doubt your secretary would want to try squeezing me in too," she said with a wink and a wave of her wand. Fresh coffee poured in a steady stream from the pot into the mug; would she ever get used to seeing it without steam?

"It's flattering you think I'll still be here ten years from now," he said, stone-faced as she waved the carafe off before the mug overflowed.

She could've said something cute, maybe about how he should appreciate the vote of confidence given his unpopularity at the moment. Or something fawning, the way Abernathy would at a meeting, _Not_ here _of course. Upstairs, in the President's office._

"I came to say I'm sorry," she blurted out instead, swishing her wand to harden the excess into frozen cubes, their edges as pointy as she could manage. She'd had a plan; it had dissolved the moment he'd set his quill down and clasped his hands so tightly together. "Last time I was here I-I read your mind. That was wrong of me." She'd forgotten to fill the mug with ice first, but she couldn't help remembering what he'd wanted so badly to do with his hands. Wondering what else she'd forgotten, Queenie glanced at the tray. Coffee, cream, a sincere apology… Check, check, check.

His hands relaxed, pressed flat against the desk pad as he slumped back in his chair. "You're a legilimens." Had anyone ever said it so coolly before? Anger, horror, fear or guilt, even awe: _those_ were typical reactions, not Graves's bland acceptance. But then, she ran into a practiced occlumens about as often as anyone else ran into a natural legilimens. And Tina had warned her; she didn't really have cause for surprise.

"I didn't see anything confidential! Just personal." She winced and looked to the creamer hovering in mid-air, ready to pour. "Do you still take it black or-"

"No." Curt but better than _you're fired_ , and the edge was further taken off the word when he continued in a subdued tone, "I wasn't sure at first. You have a lighter touch than... some."

In his hesitation lay a week of some stranger forcing himself into his mind, scraping out every MACUSA secret, every detail of his life without a care for how it was done or an ounce of sympathy for what he learned. Feeling no more kindness than the lemon squeezer for overripe fruit.

No wonder he strived to keep his mind well-guarded, despite Grindelwald's swift kick back to Europe after his arrest. No wonder his eyes flicked repeatedly to the closed door behind her.

Grindelwald stepping over him, his heart pounding in his chest the way it had when he'd run through the musty old house he'd grown up in. Sliding clumsily across polished floorboards, wishing he could run faster, wishing he could move at all.

Queenie shuddered as the memories blurred together, swallowed away the phantom taste of iron, of his father's disappointment – _Do you know what your grandfather would've done if I'd brought home grades like this?_ – to watch the spoon stir in the cream far more vigorously than needed. "I never mean anything by it, but stopping… it would be like trying to turn off your ears not to hear a conversation happening right in front of you."

"In a room you tricked your way into."

She could've taken offense, snapped something about how she wasn't that kind of witch. Or she could've just taken the blame, kept her mouth shut and left. She did neither.

"Oh honey, I didn't have to." A discreet wave of her wand sent the spoon and the rest of the coffee things packing to the nearest lunchroom, leaving behind only the full mug. Queenie plucked it from mid-air to step closer, and set it on the desk before him. "You let me in all on your own."

It was a lot like having a staring contest with a sphinx, waiting to see if the riddle was answered or if she was about to die a gruesome death. But Graves broke first, mouth a hard line as he stared down at the ice cubes bobbing in the mug. Silently conceding the point.

The highest-ranking auror in the country with occlumency training to match, and his shield had failed because a little bit of spontaneous kindness had shocked him to the core. And that shield wasn't as buzzy now as when she'd first entered the room. It was the dial between stations again, nothing like his usual fizz of nothing.

 _People are the easiest to read when they're hurting,_ she'd told Jacob.

"You've apologized."

She'd been dismissed enough times in her life to recognize it when it happened, but she didn't budge. Humble pie wasn't the only reason she was there. She stepped closer, ignoring the bead of sweat running down her back, or how still he went when the hem of her skirt brushed his pant leg. "I saw- I mean, I wanted to ask if you really-"

"If I really _what_?" The hard look he aimed at the ice cubes could've frozen them twice over. "If I really wish I hadn't come back? If I really let him get the drop on me? If I really don't care that you're a legilimens? What is it you wanted to ask if I _really_?"

"Goodness, none of that," she said after a shocked moment. "No, I just…" Reached out to him then before the fierceness of his gaze stopped her mid-motion. Angry, maybe, but not at her. She knew that much, had _felt_ that much.

Grindelwald laughing at him. _Nobody will even notice you're gone._ Not some recollection stolen from before. No, the taunt was fresh, distinct before his mental barrier obscured the rest of the memory. _People are easiest-_ With his training, Graves had to know that as well. That raw emotions, unchecked desires, were the fastest way into another's mind.

His eyes weren't on her free hand, but on her wand as she set it deliberately on the desk beside his own. He twitched when she touched his cheek.

"I just never had anybody think of school when they looked at me," she said with a helpless shrug of her shoulder, the tender smile on her face belying how Grindelwald's words reverberated in her head.

That smile slipped away when he clutched her hand hard against his cheek and nuzzled her palm; she gasped softly as his lips dragged against her inner wrist. Partly at the sensation of his freshly shaved skin against her fingertips, and partly because the static of his mental barrier resolved into something altogether clearer.

Warm light, yellow through the birch leaves yet to fall in the early autumn. She'd seen that too – every October for seven years.

"Do I really remind you of the trees at Ilvermorny?" She brushed her thumb against his sharp cheekbone. _It won't be you they remember, it'll be_ _me_ , Grindelwald had said to him.

She knew what it was like to be forgotten.

"Yes," he whispered against her palm before he surged to his feet to cup her face, but he didn't kiss her the way she'd expected. She moaned as he pushed his face against her neck, shaking fingers brushing her hair back so he could press his nose to the sweat-damp skin below her ear, and all she could hear beyond her blood surging was the buzz of his occlumency shield, the volume spiking as he struggled to keep it steady.

Faltered as his fingers spread over her cheek and she sucked the tip of his thumb; he groaned at the brush of her teeth.

"Your hair," he breathed against her ear before nipping her earlobe, "the leaves." Kissed along the curve of her jaw, and her laugh turned to a shaky moan as she pulled at his waistcoat, dazed by the desperation that punched through his shield. His hands slid down her body to her hips, over her thin skirts, and his desk couldn't clear itself quickly enough before he lifted her effortlessly up to sit on it; there was a crash of porcelain meeting the floor, a clatter as their wands rolled off the edge after the mug, a crinkle of parchment under her.

Her hands slid over his back, felt the warm silk of his waistcoat as he spread her legs and moved in close against her. Close enough she could feel his weight, and his eyelashes fluttered as she palmed his nape. He clutched at her legs as her fingernails scraped against his scalp, where the hair was buzzed short and prickled with sweat; he groaned as her blouse unbuttoned itself, though whether it was his doing or hers she couldn't say. She was too busy moaning as he bit gently at her collarbone before he began to trail kisses down her chest, the flimsy straps of her slip following her blouse down and off her shoulders. His short nails dragged lightly up her thighs, pushing her skirt and slip up higher and higher.

 _I'll have runs in my stockings for sure_ , she thought, just before there was a bright elastic _pop_ and she jerked at the sting of a garter snapping.

"Sorry," he murmured against her chest, lips tracing along the upper edge of her slip, tongue a tease against the rise of one breast and then the other. All the while his mental barrier wavered like a storm tide – then a deafening hiss, now a surge of lust. A long drone of nothing as he mouthed at her breast, the fine silk of her slip barely covering her nipple and doing nothing for her modesty as her own harsh breathing rasped lonely and obscene in her ears. Then, with the sudden crank of the dial, a thoroughly foreign arousal throbbed in her as he squeezed her thigh tight against his waist, the urge to rub against her almost overwhelming and she twisted in shared frustration as he rolled her stocking down.

White noise again as he slid through her hands like sand through a closed fist to sit back down in his chair, and for an insane moment she wondered if he'd changed his mind, if that was why he'd kept up his occlumency shield. If he meant to resist after all. For the moment, she couldn't read him, no matter how rudely she leaned on the invisible barrier between their two minds. It was a dirty cheat but she was about to reach for him when he rolled himself closer, lifted one of her legs over his shoulder. Knew at once he hadn't changed his mind when he licked a wet swath up her bare inner thigh.

"Oh-oh my." She gasped as he nudged her legs further apart and sucked at the sensitive skin at the crease of her thigh before kissing his way down her other thigh, only stopping when he reached the lacy edge of her stocking.

There was a brittleness to his ironclad control over his emotions; it fractured at reminders of his isolation, at her touch. Was that why he hadn't kissed her sooner? There wasn't any shield keeping her out now as he worked his way back up her thigh, but she didn't have the concentration to read anything deeper than what she felt in his trembling grip on her knee, or in the low groan he let out as his free hand pushed between her legs, his mouth following close after his indecent fingers.

The first lick made her tense, seize his shoulder, but then he quickly found his rhythm and she gave no thought at all to pushing him away. Especially not when he hooked her other leg over his shoulder, and all she could see was his white-streaked hair falling loose in sweaty hanks as his lips moved against her cunt the way they had over the rest of her body. Deliberate, as if he were blind and could only see her by feel, by taste, and he badly wanted to see her.

Not that that stopped him from staring intently up at her, past her rucked up skirts, his eyes fixed on her face. At least until she grabbed a fistful of his hair as she shifted unthinkingly on his desk. His eyes clenched tightly shut then, and her mind filled instantly with that drumbeat hunger of his to touch her, so like her thrumming pulse as he tongued her clit.

"Oh my god," she moaned, thighs tensing, trembling, and she tightened her grip on his hair, holding his face close as he sucked her clit and she began to shake.

His hand slid up her side, holding her skirt and slip bunched up, the air steamy against her bared hip, and there was a tingling dribble, quickly followed by the molasses-thick spread of a silencing spell over the room. Not a moment too soon as he kept up the pressure on her clit until she let out a high-pitched whimper and came, curled over him, heels digging into his back. A moan stuttered out of her as he licked at her, long swipes of his tongue between his fingers over her cunt, and she slid her hands down the back of his clammy neck to fist the sweat-soaked fabric stretched over his shoulders.

"One more," she panted, tugging at him insistently as she did her best to make sense of the riot of half-formed thoughts and sensations his mind was broadcasting, dying to find a hint of that one thing she could say or do to make him give in.

She let his wrinkled waistcoat go to scrape her nails up the back of his neck; nearly laughed as the signal sharpened in turn, and he gave her something she could use. An old song, nothing she hadn't heard before, but she didn't mind singing along this time if that was the tune he wanted to hear.

"One more, Daddy, I need one more, c'mon," she said, voice pitched low as she combed her fingers roughly through his hair. When he twisted his face against her, groaned into her thigh, she took the chance and fisted his hair the way she had before, tugging at it gently until he looked up at her. "Baby needs one more, Daddy."

"God." The squinting look he gave her made her grin, though it didn't last long when he obediently leaned back into her and resumed licking, and she yelped, the tip of his tongue on her sensitive clit like a jolt.

"Yeah, yeah," she panted, eyebrows furrowing as she squirmed, needing more. Nearly yelled at him when he backed off again, and she missed his tongue for the brief seconds it was gone before his fingers slid down over her slick folds and pushed into her. Something to clench tightly around as his tongue worked, and she came a second time as he curled his fingers and steadily stroked at some spot inside her, his other hand pressing on the tangled mess of her skirt and slip over her stomach, holding her down as he thrust his fingers into her again and again as she groaned loudly in satisfaction.

His hands fell away when she flopped backwards across his desk, and for long moments she laid there, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling and shivering despite the office's muggy air. She could feel him breathing against her inner thighs, harsh and hot; she sat up, legs sliding over his shoulders, about to draw away until he wrapped a hand around her knee to keep her close.

There was a sound, muffled, rough, like the rasp of fabric-

"Are you close?" she asked, stroking his hair out of his face a second time, smoothing back the shiny locks.

He nodded shortly, smooth cheek sliding against her tender skin before his mouth dropped open and he pressed his hot face to her thigh, panting.

She couldn't resist reaching out with her mind, half-expecting to run headfirst into his shield, but there was nothing. No static, but no thoughts either. Nothing to drown out the muffled sound of his hand moving in his trousers, faster as she fisted his hair and tilted his head back to better look at him. At his wet mouth, his flushed cheeks, and his thick eyebrows that drew tight together as he stared back at her, full of that awful yearning she'd heard before, his fingers bruising on her leg.

It wasn't something she heard any more, but only because it was too close – under her skin, hammering between her ears. Like a gale, flattening fields, knocking down trees and leaving nothing to howl between. Just pressure.

"I'm not gonna forget," she whispered to him, the way he so desperately wanted to hear, and rubbed her thumb over his red lower lip. He clutched at her hand like before, pressed his face against her palm like a cat as the pressure broke and he grunted and came, shuddering with a choked sound. Then he dropped her hand and slumped forward, head pillowed on her thigh.

Minutes passed in relative silence that she had no desire to fill, distracted as she was listening to the emptiness in his mind – not the hum of his occlumency, but something far simpler. He was too worn out, too sated, to think; even his deafening desire to touch her had quieted. And not a word for all the undoubtedly important documents she was still sitting – sweating – on.

As their breathing gradually slowed, she wondered how long his station would continue to broadcast dead air, so to speak – it was still so early in the day. And she was meant to start at nine... Maybe she'd fake sick and go home. It seemed downright indecent to go back to work as if nothing had happened, even if a quick charm or two would set her appearance to rights.

Not to mention the infernal heat, but surely Kneedander's calculations had been correct about the Huma leaving soon. The woman was rarely wrong when it came to creatures, particularly birds-

"Hm? They're really leavin'?" Her hand stilled atop Graves's head; she'd been petting him aimlessly as she listened, and now she wasn't sure where her thoughts ended and his began. That last bit was definitely his, but the rest? He might've had all his clothes on – and in the right way – but he wasn't in significantly better shape than she was. For starters, his hair was going wavy between her fingers. Wasn't Sleekeazy's supposed to handle all sorts of things, even the most... _vigorous_ activity?

"I didn't say anything." The sensation of his lips moving against her skin was distracting enough that she didn't immediately notice his dry accusation. "But it's true. You won't be doling out iced coffee for much longer, I'm afraid."

Her blush became far guiltier – she really did have to get better at blocking people out – but otherwise she couldn't find it in herself to feel too disappointed. Not about the weather, anyway. Graves drawing away from her, his chair creaking as he leaned far enough forward to rescue their wands from the floor? _That_ was something to be disappointed by.

"But in the meantime, now would be a good time for some of that ice." He handed her wand back grip-first after she'd fixed her slip's straps, nearly managing to look demure as he gave her stocking a nudge and set it rolling back up her leg before giving his own trousers an unobtrusive tap of his wand. "Don't you think?"

"I think if you want it you can do it yourself." Followed his lead; tugged her slip and skirt back down to slightly less scandalous heights before chucking him under the chin, giving him no choice but to look up at her. Good man – he didn't glance down once to watch as her blouse rebuttoned itself. "Haven't you been practicing?"

"Of course." His eyebrows twitched briefly together. Scratchiness at the back of the throat; the glass in the hand, condensation refreshing against the palm. His eyes only left hers when the porcelain mug, newly repaired and full once more, returned to its place on his desk; he swallowed. "It's a little early, but... would you care for a drink, Miss Goldstein? Something stronger than coffee."

"Queenie," she insisted again, stroking his cheek with her knuckle. "That sounds swell if you're makin' 'em."

"Alright. Queenie." The corner of his mouth curled upwards. A smile at last. "I take mine on the rocks. How about you?"


End file.
